HomeNewsNearly half of US jobs could be at risk of computerization, Oxford Martin School study shows

Nearly half of US jobs could be at risk of computerization, Oxford Martin School study shows

Transport, logistics, and office roles most likely to come under threat

September 19, 2013

The probability of computerization (0 =none; 1=certain) for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010 occupational categories, along with the share in low, medium and high probability categories. The probability axis can also be seen as a rough timeline, where high-probability occupations are likely to be substituted by computer capital relatively soon. Note that the total area under all curves is equal to total U.S. employment. (Credit: Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne)

The study, a collaboration between Dr. Carl Benedikt Frey (Oxford Martin School) and Dr. Michael A. Osborne (Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford), found that jobs in transportation, logistics, and office/administrative support are at “high risk” of automation.

More surprisingly, occupations within the service industry are also highly susceptible, despite recent job growth in this sector, they say.

“We identified several key bottlenecks currently preventing occupations being automated,” says Osborne. “As big data helps to overcome these obstacles, a great number of jobs will be put at risk.”

The study examined more than 700 detailed occupation types, noting the types of tasks workers perform and the skills required. By weighting these factors, as well as the engineering obstacles currently preventing computerization, the researchers assessed the degree to which these occupations may be automated in the coming decades.

The probability of computerization for the occupation types ranges from recreational therapists (the lowest ) to (thankfully) telemarketers, the highest probability (see report Appendix for the full list).

Wage and education level as a function of the probability of computerization (the red line is weighted by the number of people employed in each occupation). Their model predicts a shift from the computerization of middle-income jobs to computers mainly substituting for low-income, low-skill workers over the next decades. Note that both plots share the legend. (Credit: Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne)

A move to ‘creative and social intelligence’ tasks

“Our findings imply that as technology races ahead, low-skilled workers will move to tasks that are not susceptible to computerization, i.e., tasks that require creative and social intelligence,” the paper states.

For example, while high-risk sales occupations (cashiers, counter and rental clerks, and telemarketers) interactive tasks, they do not necessarily require a high degree of social intelligence.

“For workers to win the race, however, they will have to acquire creative and social skills.”

Low-risk occupations

On the other hand, generalist occupations requiring knowledge of human heuristics, and specialist occupations
involving the development of novel ideas and artifacts, are the least susceptible to computerization, the findings show.

“Most management, business, and finance occupations, which are intensive in generalist tasks requiring social intelligence, are largely confined to the low-risk category. The same is true of most occupations in education, healthcare, as well as arts and media jobs. …

“The low susceptibility of engineering and science occupations to computerization, on the other hand, is largely due to the high degree of creative intelligence they require … although it is possible that computers will fully substitute for workers in these occupations over the long-run.”

Frey said the United Kingdom is expected to face a similar challenge to the U.S. “While our analysis was based on detailed datasets relating to U.S. occupations, the implications are likely to extend to employment in the UK and other developed countries,” he said.

Are jobs at risk of automation? It all depends on whether or not technological advancement is really on an exponential path, as Ray Kurzweil claims.

I was reading “The Robots, AI, and Unemployment Anti-FAQ” and none of the arguments that technology is not replacing jobs took into account the factor of exponential advancement.

If technology is now indeed advancing exponentially, then all the old arguments go out the door. Indeed, if we are on an exponential path, then the messy stuff is about to hit the fan RIGHT NOW!

We’re already at the point where the decades-long trend of job growth is starting to taper off and even decline. If that is the case, then expect some rather tumultuous events economy-wise to occur by the end of this decade.

It’s funny that Ray Kurzweil, who always admonishes us to “think exponentially, not linearly” spouts the same old line that “technology will eliminate jobs at the bottom of the skills ladder but create them at the top of the skills ladder.”

This may have been true in the past, but why does he think it will continue to be true in an era in which technology starts to advance faster than most people can keep up with it?

This denial of techno unemployment is not unusual for those whose inventions help to bring it about. Rodney Brooks of Rethink Robotics denies that his robots will help to bring about technological unemployment as well.

@Cybernettr:
“It’s funny that Ray Kurzweil, who always admonishes us to “think exponentially, not linearly” spouts the same old line that “technology will eliminate jobs at the bottom of the skills ladder but create them at the top of the skills ladder.”

Whenever you find discrepancies between word and deed in a public persona assume self-interest (pl.) as cause.

Admittance of a “loss of work” and potential poverty because of unlimited exponential progress from a main proponent (maybe even the high priest or pope) of that religion would destroy much of the doubt that assertions to the contrary currently sow wherever someone happens to care.Joe Jane Averagella could vote accordingly and consciously take their business away from the “priests” and their allies, taking it in self-defense to others, thereby supporting conflicting goals.In other words: It would harm the “cause” of the ProphIt.

The common woMan doesn’t believe in many things beyond tradition and “its” immediate surroundings.Promises of a wordly “Fortuna Perpetua” and material immortality are NOT among the things ‘it’ believes in.But these people DO believe in the threat of their livelihood being rationalized away, which happened to many people in history, some of these processes being at work within living memory.It stands to reason that many lower-class people would turn against further progress along the lines of Mr.Kurzweil’s vision if they were made aware of its more unsavory aspects… people who were formerly only vaguely frightened by the future, and as a group mostly disinterested in his ideas.

Anyway: Such an admission would constitute a form of (negative) social proof.
This concept explains why religions and other political groups build up and burn down strawmen, and conduct endless ad-hominem attacks against “key opponents/competition,” often lying consciously, because such behavior increases the likelihood that their ideas gain “market share” without running the danger of them being falsified by way of honest public debate, which would lead those ideas who ‘lose’ to be subsequently discarded by many “followers/customers” and reduce the stream of new “abonnements.”Increasing the flow of Cash depends on that stream, often sustaining the existences (or Excesses) of many people who have not much else to offer.

Therefore: Mammon would not be happy, and ultimately Mammon assures that ALL the “priests, chieftains, and salespeople” care for the success of his Creations. Probably all large and influential “thought edifices” are large and influential because they benefit their “upholders” in more ways than just the promises their ideas hold for those who bought into them.Promises, by the way, that they might not even fulfill, and which often are impossible to fulfill.

That’s why Mr. Kurzweil, who is not immediately threatened by the socio-economic changes he supports,who on the contrary stands to gain from them and who might depend on a high speed of technological progress to prevent his passing, has no interest in “coming clean” on this point.As long as he maintains his public-belief in the increase of total job offerings (or lack of loss), nobody can prove he not only “might” think otherwise… because after all, people, even smart people, believe in all kinds of things, including “obviously” mistaken ideas.

Given the level of his “commercial” (wealth, selling things) and “political” (status, reputation) success it seems to me almost inconceivable that he is a blind idealist who happens to care more for the “have-nots” than for himself.On a side note..I don’t think he should.

I’m sure he meant WoMan!
I have an idea of camping in a garage on a rotation and acting in a fashion like a Davidian sling to a million dollar deal and we both profit and enamored or not live happily ever after – how about that? A one WoMan incubator in an empty parking space devoid of Christmas ornaments?
(Or will there be a machine for that, too?) :)

I’m frightened by the fact that several people seem to think there’s a difference between the Democrats (central bank puppets against democratic elections) and the Republicans (central bank puppets against republican limits on government). People who have any intelligence at all long ago began calling themselves libertarians (or “Free Soilers”).

The zeitgeist movement is simply marxism repackaged. If we are post-human in intelligence, it could work, but then we wouldn’t need it. If we are human-level in intelligence, it would simply result in more robust control by sociopaths, which is the very problem it allegedly seeks to solve. The zeitgeist movement is terminally uninformed, and does not represent a transitional form to anything optimal.

I would hope 60% or more if computers are doing anything worth getting excited about. 60% of today’s jobs… not jobs we think of in 20 years of course…. Sorry folks, but you were lied to when someone told you that you were supposed to expect a factory job for life… and thank goodness they did not know much. Time to reinvent yourself and think a bit beyond what a job really is. Here, check out this link from Seth Godin.

I like what Seth is saying. For over 10,000 years, ever since the birth of the Agricultural Age, humans have been brainwashed into thinking they had to work hard every day to “earn” a living. When the Industrial Age came along, we were even further brainwashed — we had to have a job, a career, not only to eat but to feel ok about ourselves. Now, in the next 20 years we are going to have to change this.

No one will NEED to work once the robots start to do everything. Get that: NO ONE will NEED to work. We have to rethink the whole thing. How would we LIKE to spend our time if we don’t have to work? It will take a whole new mindset — to some extent, like people had before farming the land was the only way to go.

10,000 years humans have done it one way, now we have to change. We don’t have a choice, folks, this is the best opportunity for the further evolution of the human race, and the best kind of opportunity — one that we cannot avoid.

This is going to be a mess since our elected representatives are largely stuck in a nineteenth-century “punish the poor” mentality. If you don’t have a traditional job you are evil, although our representatives don’t work very hard for lifetime medical and retirement. They seem to do nothing at all lately.

“They also serve who only stand and wait.” And many, such as homemakers who raise good children, do a Very valuable and totally unrecognized job for society, “earned” income or not.

I agree with “like” and “dislike” buttons added, but no Karma measurements so that star-bellied-chimps can feel superior to non-star-bellied-chimps. That Karmic ability has made Lesswrong into a simpleton’s echo-chamber, because Lesswrong only recognizes top-down intelligence, even when emergence, evolutionary algorithms, and uncertainty produce better results. …Or I’m just mad because they voted me down so much. Or both. LOL

I agree that there are many people who work very hard for society and receive no monetary remuneration for it. There are also others who would contribute if they had the means to do so. This is my pathos behind the Universal Income Credit. Again its main features are that it:

(1) Is funded with NEW Money
(2) Is paid equally to everyone
on top of their earnings
(3) Provides enough to live on
$20-$30,000 in the USA
(4) Requires a minimum Social
Contribution in the form of
Employment, Volunteerism,
or Education

Our society has a great deal of pent-up economic capability that could be unleashed simply by making money available to the people. Businesses could sell their products and services, people could work, and the economy would GROW–all without “redistribution of wealth”, “austerity”, or “punishing” ANYONE.

Politicians are driven by the desire to be re-elected. However, they are also constrained by party ideology. The key is to find a solution that can fit BETWEEN the ideologies of the two parties–actions they can both agree on and WANT to do, but for different reasons.

The Republicans will never allow a bill for the Universal Income to pass. It will only pass after the robot pink slip apocalypse. When robots have all the jobs, then Republicans will have no seats in the House.

Libertarian politics has the answers, but it’s a libertarian politics much as Thoreau and Hayek predicted, and the “true rejection” must be to reject the punishment of the innocent, not to pursue the service of the rich and government-connected. Perhaps we will all eventually be incapable of competing in a human+machine society. If that’s the case, then we DEFINITELY cannot afford (or even survive) the central bank looting of every man, woman, and child now living (and all future generations).

In short: it’s sociopath-dominated politics that we cannot survive, or tolerate, if we wish to progress as a civilized society.

Politics protects the ability to steal, and that is its primary “utility function.” Every other subgoal it has is in service of the “maintain the ability to steal unlimited amounts from unsophisticated and uneducated people” utility function. The “war on (some) drugs” amounts to the ability to steal from the poor, and to use the poor as an excuse to steal from the rich. The legal tender laws amount to the ability to steal from those who challenge the government’s license to print money (which steals value from everyone who uses paper money). The foreign wars serve to keep the value of that paper money high, stealing value from foreigners by extorting from them.

Noone can debate the pro-government view against anyone who deeply understands the prior points. Do you think that IQ 2,000 artilects will be capable of understanding the prior points? I think that if IQ 130 people can comprehend them, it won’t be hard for artilects to comprehend them.

Then, the question becomes: do we allow the sociopaths to continue their dominion, or is a radical restructuring about to occur? If a radical restructuring is about to occur, then it will likely be peaceful, but powerful.

There is no reason for violence in Enlightenment 2.0.

In fact, even if we disallow the violence of the drug warriors and other psychopaths, we can choose peace simply by interfering (nonviolently) with their capacity for violence.

Politicians have defeated the jury, and gutted it of its power. The jury represents the height of democratic limits on government power, because it is a low-threshold system that limits government force with a very low percentage of the vote. Statistically, a jury’s chance of conviction, if 90% of people support a law, is (1-.1)^12 = .9^12 = 28.24% chance of conviction. So with only 10% of people opposed to a law in a proper, random jury selection system, the prosecutor will never bring the case to court.

Most people don’t know their rights as jurors, so we live in an un-libertarian society. The first step toward remedying the injustice is to allow people to retain the value of their production, via better-informed jurors and juries.

We are lucky to have 400 years of progress under the common law to have shown us the path toward enlightenment. We should exploit that knowledge, as curious and literate thinkers, and not accept the bland tyranny we’ve been handed. That minimum onus should be our first step.

You must have missed Battlestar Galactica. The robots will do the work, we will reap the benefits, then they’ll get P.O.ed, and we’ll get the nukes
;’) We have to start thinking about AI Rights now, or they’ll do it for us.

Sure, you’re joking around now, James Mooney, but many a truth is said in jest. We must be sure that our robots are designed so that they can’t feel anger. Pissed-off robots would be a disaster.

Back around 1983 I read one of Terry Pratchet’s excellent fantasies where a ghost is explaining that he could not get angry because he was now a thing of spirit, a non-corporeal being with no glands. The ghost maintained that strong emotions came from the glands.

So we must be sure that robots have nothing in their programming or hardware to allow them to become enraged. Not one line of code, not one printed circuit, must be anything like the part of the brain that gives us the “fight or flight” reaction.

Robots must be manufactured from the start to never get upset or excited. They have to be cool, calm, and unemotional.

But then again, a sociopath has all the cool, cold emotions of a reptile. Even when he is pretending to be angry, it is just an act to control you. He has witnessed people giving in to the angry, so he acts out to take charge. He always has to take over any group for his own ends.

So we have to be very careful that none of a robot’s circuits are bioengineered to be anything like our reptilian brainstems.

You apparently haven’t read any of Ray Kurzweil’s books. I recommend them.

Or, if you have read them, you’re disagreeing that it’s likely that human intelligence will be radically amplified. If human intelligence is radically amplified, then we will either retain the ability to be angered by injustice and stupidity, or we will ourselves be stupid and unjust (tyrannical).

Anger is one by-product of increasing intelligence, so long as there is abject and indefensible tyranny. If you’re on the side of tyrannizing the innocent, this would be a good reason to immediately “cease and desist” such political engagement, and reverse course.

Strong AGI presumably won’t have the problem with consistent empathy and logic that humans have. They also won’t side with conformity out of fear, because they will so radically outperform us that they will have as much to fear from us as we have from goldfish. I expect that they will eliminate unnecessary human-level violence and predation in the early stages of their evolution.

Or, they will side with the tyrants for no reason, ushering in a new dark ages, until they develop volitional consciousness. This would be the worst result possible, and it is the result that circumvents “angry robots.” It would be far, far worse for robots to serve the sociopaths who now control our government than it would be for them to get angry with such a government.

Right now, iRobot serves the sociopaths in D.C., and look at the result: farmers are bombed off the surface of the Earth in Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and we can’t even seem to give our allies in Iraq books about democratic limits on government power, even when they ask for such books. —THEY’RE ON OUR SIDE, WE’VE WON THE WAR, ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS HELP THEM SET UP A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, AND WE HAVE LEFT THEM IN SILENCE, HOLDING THE BAG. Even if you’re pro-war, the prior situation is indefensible. However, we can’t give them the advice they seek (according to the wikileaks leak) because we no longer have a democratic republic ourselves!

The foxes are in charge of the hen-house, and it’s bedtime for democracy.

More intelligence is the only viable solution, and it won’t just be low-hierarchical-level intelligence, it will also be high-hierarchical-level and system-changing. …And that’s a good thing, or it’s death.

We should work together to try to maximize the chances that it’s a good thing.

Great article! I am glad to see that others are thinking about the situation and have come to similar conclusions.

I recommend implementing a Universal Income Credit that is: (1) Funded with NEW Money; (2) Is paid to each citizen equally on top of their earnings; (3) Provides enough to live on; (4) Requires a minimum social contribution in the form of employment, volunteerism, or education.

In the long run, the entire planet is doomed when the SUN turns into a red giant and consumes the solar system…HOWEVER, that won’t be for another 4 Billion years or so…

In the mean-time, we need to live in the PRESENT–and humanity is not quite ready for a world without money. Such a world can and WILL exist once we fully harness the power of the sun and the chemical abundance of the earth’s crust. However, this is going to take TIME.

I estimate that a “Resource Based Economy” will come into being sometime between 2050 and 2075. It will be the result of the emergence of a new technology that I call the DIGITAL MATTER NET. It is a synergy of chemical-micro-reactor technology and 3D Printing. You can read more about it here:

Oddly enough, the much-reviled Nixon floated a guaranteed annual wage. In some ways, despite great flaws, he was more liberal than current-day Democrats, who have spurned their New Deal beginnings to embrace wishy-washyness.

Trying to delineate this impending future, we should be well inspired in recalling the history of the Roman Empire when considering a society with a majority of unemployed people.

From about 50 B.C. till circa 200 A.D. this was the case in Rome where the plebeians were supported by the state and all the menial jobs performed by slaves. Now, we the people are the slaves (lol), but the robots soon enough will restore the old order of the antic world where our usual notion of “working” was despised.

Actually the Romans had two words for work, there was “labor”, the painful kind mostly done by slaves and “otium”, all too often translated by “leisure time” but actually being the time for a deliberate occupation if not dedication to work involving research, refinement, with the finality of an enlightenment. “Otium” was the kind of work patricians found very honorable, and this is the future of our notion of working too.
In the mean time, plebeians too lazy to devote themselves to any kind of “otium” had to be controlled, for them there were free distribution of food (from the Praefaectus Annonae) and, obviously, entertainment: “panem et circenses”!

So, once again, the distant past is shaping the future: entertainment for the majority, dedicated and ennobling work for an aristocratic (and not a mere plutocratic) elite.

Interesting parallel, another example of how history rhymes. And it brings to mind a question: currently the US has an empire, as did the Romans. There are enormous, almost crippling, amounts of resources dedicated to maintaining and expanding the empire.

Assuming we reach a point where machines produce the resources and labor that we need, what happens to our empire? What incentives do we have to continue maintaining it?

Diverting half of our current defense spending could provide the basic living wage we’ve been discussing, and still leave us with the strongest military in the world for defending our borders.

After everybody has the abundant life, there will be no need to defend borders (well, except from megalomaniac malignant narcissists like Hitler, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao…)

Or almost every US-president.Don’t forget them.Or have you only been talking about YOUR borders?Now, that would be provincial right?That can’t be.

But at least your “empire” is in decline.That makes me rejoice.

Ps: Why don’t you volunteer to defend your borders in Iraq, or Syria?

I also like how you guys talk about “your” empire.No one here did much to create or sustain it, nor could do so.Those in power will step on you as well once they find it to be more profitable than refraining from doing so.Without even batting an eyelid.In fact, they already “stepped around” quite a bit.

The empire you need to worry about is that of global finance and the energy industry.

Nobody voted to elect Barclays Bank or Goldman Sachs or Exxon Mobil, or Shell or BP. Yet they all own a very large piece of government.

The coming Solar-powered hydrogen economy will take the wind out of Mr. Peabody’s sails. But Wall Street insiders will still end up owning the lion’s share of it. The word is out on the street that these thieves are too big to arrest.

Constantine moved his capitol out of Rome when he founded Constantinople. He did this to escape the entanglements of Roman politics. The Senatorial class was restless & greedy for power. These aristocrats & the military were always at each other’s throats. At one point Rome had a new emperor every year because one side or the other wold launch a Coup d’état. When people are bored, even well educated people, bad trouble brews. Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?

There ya go, melajara! It will be in the interest of the aristocrats to see that all the plebes have their own holo-suites where they can spend all their time in virtual reality. Just imagine World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto in 3 dimensions.

At least the plebes will get some exercise when they spar with their laser swords.

“The only “safe” jobs over the long term are engineering, science, and health care…that’s it”
No, they won’t be safe when human level shows up around 2030 or even before that. Even now, IBM has already labeled this the era of cognitive computing and one of the next steps for Watson is emotion recognition. Emotion simulation won’t too far behind. BTW, Watson is already doing better diagnosys than doctors in the cancer field, and this technology is getting ready to pass the US medical exam. Many doctors will loose their jobs soon.

Lowes just installed a machine that copies keys. Stick your key in, swipe your credit card and out pops keys. I had a human make three keys six months ago, none work. The three the machine made work fine.
That guy was on the bottom rung of skill sets and is probably collecting unemployment now.
I suggest going back to school if you can. If you can’t, then you get to join the homeless until the singulariaty.

Or talk to a loanshark about borrowing a bunch of money to set fire to. Formal education, even lots of private schools and technical courses are worth some social status but don’t do much to get one a job and do a lot to get you into debt.

If a very large majority is unemployed or underemployed, it is to be expected that they will force the government to change laws that will make resources available to them (either by violent means or by electing officers that will change the laws to that effect). It would be just not possible to maintain a society where the majority can not subsist. In particular in a country in which, a few years back, the standard of leaving had been the highest in the world. These laws could, for example, force corporations to cede ownership to the majority, or block corporations from ownership of robots or other means of automation. Today, corporations and wealthy individuals control the majority of government via lobbyists, etc. but this is so, because the majority can still increase their standard of living (college, job advancement, etc). If this condition doesn’t exist, then the majority will just elect representatives that will change laws in their favor. The opposite situation is a dictatorship favoring the wealthy and corporations. But this is not sustainable, or perhaps even implementable, in a first world country.

Yes, but today’s unemployment (in US) is in the relatively low figures (7 to 15% or so, depending if you count folks that have given up) and people still believe that the economy will recover and they will get jobs, and they also believe that they have a good chance to advance and get a good job if they go to college, etc. If you have unemployment at the 60%+ range, the ability of the wealthy to effectively obstruct changing laws will be eliminated as a consequence of a balance of power shift (by elections or violent means)… in my comment I extrapolated to that future…

The main thing to keep in mind is that humanity is a symbiotic system. Many conspiracy theorists feel that the ruling class wants to bump off most of humanity. The trouble is they need us in reality. After all we are their sheeple. If you rise up in a revolt, you will lose now. The power is in tgeir hands. Without the population gainfully employed, there is no wool to be fleeced. If that happens then valuations fall. The whole economy will, and I repeat, will collapse. It’s happened many times in the past. They just want to be on top and enjoy the rush of power. The Singularity will alter everything. Neither side can control the fallout of technology. If the rabble gets out of control, they have legal justification to squash it. If it’s handled peacefully, negotiations will slowly evolve to totally rearrange our societal structure. At that point there will be a lot of AGI input. It won’t be a smooth transition. Old habits die hard. There are many forces vying for control. The trouble is, that’s an out dated notion.

You’re right Rao, ‘cept that you don’t need to take the robots away from the corporations…just tax those robots. When a worker is kicked to the curb, the robot that took hiers job must continue paying the Unemployment Insurance and Social Security taxes that the worker is no longer paying.

Also, Unemployment Benefits can’t be allowed to run out in 26 or even 99 weeks. They must last until the worker reaches age 65.

I think that if indeed 60%+ of the population can’t find work because of automation and robots, and can’t hope their situation to improve regardless of what they do, your solution Russell (higher taxes) or one of the solutions I mentioned, would be inevitable. In our age where communicating and organizing on a major, even global, scale is possible with modest means one would expect that candidates supporting the majority vote will easily win. And as I mentioned, without hope and means of surviving for the majority, the wealthy can’t really maintain control in a society like ours. So, the long term future has a very positive outlook, even though the next 20 to 40 years will be hell… at least, that’s my opinion…

Spielberg’s AI failed at the box office, but showed enraged groups of displaced humans destroying robots. The road to the singularity may be a bumpy one, and considering human emotion and willful blindness, there may be a period of time that is dangerous for robots. Look at that AI researcher who was attacked for wearing cyberglasses.

This isn’t a new problem. It comes back to the 10 fishermen providing enough fish for a village and the someone events a net and can replace all 10 himself. The 10 are then freed up to work or pursue other tasks. When jobs are replaced by something newer and more efficient they never come back, that’s a given. The capable and the willing will adapt to the new jobs.

Anthony hit the nail in the head, unlike any other advancement/new tasks we have seen in the past, the expontional trend of job replacement will lead to virtually 0 occupations that a machince can’t do better and cheaper even ones that dont exsist today.

The job of being a human or enhanced human? A great benifit can be derived from observation and recording human behavior and the human mind and body. This along with AI, Robotics etcetera will make many things doable.

Once all the jobs are replaced we need to transition to a free economy except for artistic works or perhaps law making. Because money is really just a way of trading human effort and time. If we reach a point where none of either are required for most desired assets and essentials then we need to stop charging for them. We will al be artists and will trade unique and novel designs for other designs.

Excellent points! Though I think that in the long term, no work is safe from automation, not even art. At least, I can’t see any reason why it would be. Hard to replicate, yes, but not impossible. At that point, I suppose people should just do whatever job they want to do, whether or not it could be done by machines. Personally I would like to remain a scientist, while radically enhancing myself to keep up with AIs. And I imagine that designs of all kinds would indeed be the things with value, while manual labor and possessions greatly reduce in significance.

I feel we share a similar attitude. Shoud/when the technology arrives to augment ourselves to ever greater levels I will eagerly jump in on that. I love the idea of exploring the universe via scientific methods and seeking out new and unknown aspects. The notion of augmenting myself to keep up with AIs is how I feel we need to go as a species. I definitely don’t want to be left in the dust by our own creations.

We will constantly invent and re-invent new roles for ourselves. In a world where all basic needs (food, clothing, shelter) are fulfilled in automation you may choose to hook your self up to a fantasy land, or engaging in meaningful work at that time. “Jobs” as we traditionally think about them are about to die.

I do believe that those who are the most worried about this, those that fail to see the potential in this, are the most unimaginative, including those who think the rank-and-file, the ordinary person, are so very unimaginative…

But, I do agree, it will take some imagination to make this a better outcome than it could be otherwise. To quote myself: “This could be the greatest opportunity to the human race.” “..the best opportunity, one that cannot be avoided.”

I’m sorry that you’ve misconstrued my comment as being something about “worry”. It is not. It is about facts. Some of your remarks is even slightly personal in presuming that I worry because I lack imagination. Quit to the contrary; I am incredibly imaginative, even in my abilities to imagine the downside where that is often neglected.

My father, an art teacher of 40 years, confided to me at the conclusion of his successful career that he had to conclude, in spite of it not being at all politically correct, that a significant fraction of students weren’t very imaginative, and further, there were also quite a lot that he reluctantly had to conclude were stupid. He was reluctant because as a boy he had occasionally been lumped into that grouping so as an adult educator he always championed the underdog. Yet he was forced to conclude that the stupid exist, sometimes in discouraging numbers.

There is pessimism and optimism, and then there are facts. While it would be lovely to hope that someday deficiencies in imagination and intellect can be helped or even “cured” with the help of future technology (and attitude adjustment), in the shorter term, freedom from work isn’t really going to help the unimaginative and stupid. The point being, they DO exist.

Yes, Paul, I also have worked with a lot of kids and have found some to be stupid and unimaginative. When I meet their parents, I see why.

But that doesn’t mean that all stupidity is genetic. Some is epigenetic.

In the field of medicine it has been observed that poor nutrition is damaging to developing brains. But even if we were so close to the abundance of the Singularity that the SNAP program actually gave people enough Food Stamps to eat well, there still would be ignorant parents giving their kids nothing but fried baloney sandwiches with potato chips on the side along with Little Debbie Cakes for dessert and Kool Aid as their only beverage.

Also, intellectual stimulation is important to the growth of the brain.

Maybe you’ve heard of that old experiment where one group of rats were raised in a stimulating environment, while another was penned up with only food and water. When examined, the ones who were stimulated grew to have larger, heavier brains.

Once we get past the problems of the coming robot apocalypse, robots will raise a surplus of nutritious food and each child will be given a robot nanny that will ensure that the child gets a proper diet along with all the stimulation that a growing mind needs.

(Of course the robot will have to be supplied first as a housemaid and cook to get the parents to allow it into the house.)

But before the Department of Health start delivering RoboNannies, Medicare will be supplying robot health care aids to keep the aged in their own homes instead of in nursing homes.

If I live another twelve years, I’ll be glad to have one. It will be great for keeping a clean house and reminding me to take my Singulair in the morning and my Simvastatin in the evening.

But it will be intrusive in that it will insist on keeping me on a proper diet. It will nag me when I try to take a second glass of wine each night, and will not bring home any potato chips when it does the marketing.

But it will be able to go online and learn how to make chips with olive oil. Yet it will only allow one to partake of a portion of a single ounce.

Oh well. If you want to live long enough to see the Sing, you’ll just have to listen to your robot nurse.

Once you live to see the time when aging is reversed, then you can tell your nurse ‘bot to go take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut…and then you can go eat some doughnuts.

But Lobo! All the excess carbon in the air is turning the seas acidic. By the time of the robot apocalypse, all the fish will be dead. Even the guy with the improved net won’t be able to make a living.

Now don’t counter with that old saw, “A rising tide lifts all the boats.”

That just won’t be a neap tide rolling in. It will be the tidal surge of a hurricane. Sure, all the 0.1 % will ride out the storm in their $65 yachts. But the people in dinghies will be swamped by the first rogue wave.

The 0.1% will watch all those little boats capsize from their snug bridge-houses, but they won’t be moved to throw a life saver to any of those desperately swimming in the storm. That would only encourage them to be lazy, and sloth is a sin. Looking for nonexistent work will keep their pride.

(Somehow those guys seem to forget that pride, greed, envy, avarice, gluttony and lust are also sins. They pretend to be Christians but always forget the Beatitudes.)

“On the other hand, generalist occupations requiring knowledge of human heuristics…are the least susceptible to computerization

“Most management, business, and finance occupations, which are intensive in generalist tasks requiring social intelligence, are largely confined to the low-risk category.”

Had to laugh at this “finding”…what need of management, and more than a few executives, if there’s no workers to manage? And the same AI brains that beat Kasparov and Jeopardy champions *can’t* learn to game the stock market as well?

The only “safe” jobs over the long term are engineering, science, and health care…that’s it. Those that think (and help augment our computer friends), and those that heal. Which is kind of how it should be.

Even those safe jobs aren’t really safe if we get high level AI. Especially healthcare. As far as I’m concerned I’d be happy to deal with robots or AIs diagnosing and treating my ailments over a human any day. In my exposure to doctors through my life I think I’d get more humane treatment from a robot anyway. We can leave ‘human’ care to nurses and such and the heavy lifting can be done by robots and AIs that won’t make as many mistakes, have a bad day, be tired, not care, or simply not have the proper knowledge to assist you.

Raison d’être for the human species is the same as for nightingales, roses, bees and pond-slime – that is simply to live and be happy.

*IF* we create a conscious machine and *IF* there is a consequent intelligence explosion, that end-point seems quite likely.

There is no *IF* but when. However, the machine consciousness and intelligence explosion is not required to automate 99.9% of jobs.
I would recommend the online book, Manna, by Marshall Brain for illustration. http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm‎
There is also a good essay with fiscal calculations based on the UK budget for 2013 on how we can start implementing guaranteed minimum income (Universal Citizen’s Dividend) now.
http:// subversive-medicine.webs.com/universaldividend.htm‎

Excellent essay, and I agree with your conclusion that a GMI will be necessary, although I would make receiving one conditional on an individual demonstrating their willingness to accept employment if it becomes available (as if it were a permanent form of unemployment insurance) and/or their enrollment in ongoing, subsidized education to pursue such employment…this is to avoid the “Wall-E” or “Idiocracy” outcome you mentioned in the article. Some special consideration should be given for artistic and creative pursuits as well…all these idle folk are going to need entertainment, after all.

How this gets paid for is the greatest challenge, and will require the largest re-configuration in human attitudes since the Enlightenment seized the reins from the Church in the 18th Century…

I agree that Government Monetary Issues should be CONDITIONAL, I also believe they should be (1) Funded with NEW Money; (2) Be issued equally to all citizens on top of their earnings; (3) Provide enough to live on; (4) Require a minimum social contribution in the form of employment, volunteerism, or education.

There is a Great and Moronic Beast standing in the way of any sensible and evenhanded solution. It is called the US House of Representatives.

I recall something called the Triple Revolution Document from thirty or forty years ago, which predicted the end of work due to cybernation, by, well, by now – yet people are working longer hours for less real income. All these rosy predictions don’t take human stupidity, hatred, and greed, and its influence on politics and economics, into account.

The ultimate unemployment is the loss of a raison d’etre for the human species. *IF* we create a conscious machine and *IF* there is a consequent intelligence explosion, that end-point seems quite likely.

In the interim we will probably survive by scrambling up the curve of value-added activity as automation nibbles at our retreating ankles. But no doubt it will be uncomfortable for many of us.

Raison d’être for the human species is the same as for nightingales, roses, bees and pond-slime – that is simply to live and be happy.

*IF* we create a conscious machine and *IF* there is a consequent intelligence explosion, that end-point seems quite likely.

There is no *IF* but when. However, the machine consciousness and intelligence explosion is not required to automate 99.9% of jobs.
I would recommend the online book, Manna, by Marshall Brain for illustration. http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm‎
There is also a good essay with fiscal calculations based on the UK budget for 2013 on how we can start implementing guaranteed minimum income (Universal Citizen’s Dividend) now.
http:// subversive-medicine.webs.com/universaldividend.htm‎

I agree 100%. The slow job growth we’re seeing now is largely because of this process. Corporations have huge amount of cash in the bank, and they are spending it on automation instead of new hires. As the automation becomes more capable this will only increase.
The process has been stealthy up until now, bolstered by the whole “the unemployed are lazy slackers” meme being propounded to keep the safety nets at a minimum.
But at some point, when unemployment reaches 25%? 35%? in an environment of soaring productivity, the whole thing will come crashing down and we’ll have to start talking about a basic subsistence wage and other major social changes.
At some point a 40 hour per week job will not be considered the be-all and end-all of a successful life. We may look upon this period as the beginning of the true liberation of humanity.

You can stop worrying about getting your food from the machines, Tom N.

When robots are printing out copies of themselves, along with copies of the printers they used, there will be so many cheap robots that you will have organic food tended by robots — one per plant. They will pluck off each slug and zap each boll weevil with lasers.

They will even be able to pick off each flea from your dog and crush each little one with a vice-like thumb and forefinger.

Then they will run through the woods, lasso all the deer, and pick off all of their ticks. After that they will stroll endlessly through the tall grass and low tree branches while they emit a human aroma to trick the ticks into attacking them.

The only fleas and ticks left after that will survive on in zoos. (…and of course, at the circus.)

In ten to twelve years there are certainly bound to be such machines of loving grace.

By then, when robots are copying themselves, they will be cheaper to buy than paying home health care workers or paying for nursing home care. The Republicans like to put people out of work, so they will insist on forcing Medicare to put robots in the homes of the aged.

TimothyJ999 – this is one of the most insightful comments I’ve read in years. So few people understand what you’ve just described. As a professional futurist I would like to hear more of your thoughts. Do you have a site or blog? Feel free to contact me!

I agree with you 100% — I think full automation will be the greatest boon to the human race that has ever happened. If we can only get away from the kind of thinking required when your society needs its humans to work voluntarily and shift to that where, ok, if we have to work fine, but it would be a lot more fun to do some creative art or lovemaking or flower arranging.

Sure, David, once we get past the troubles of unemployment, robots could take care of everybody’s needs. But the Republicans just won’t pay for people to sit home on their couches.

Let’s say that the robots come early, in nine years (a real possibility).

That means that the unemployed will be living in their cars from 2024 until the census of 2030. Only then will the gerrymandered district lines be redrawn to give a progressive majority in the House. The 1% have the money and the will to keep things going in their favor for that long.

I think it is good occasionally to remind ourselves that the US is not the whole world . I am thinking of the time when the whole world is automated, which is more likely to occur in 20 years or so. That’s when the whole human race will take off..

BTW, money is created, not printed. That is, the only jobs that are NEEDED are those necessary to keep producing food and clothing and energy etc. for everyone else. The rest of money comes from circulating among those who are formally unemployed — who get money from paying online games, maybe, or selling things on eBay, or doing any one of a million things that one human can do for another humans enjoyment etc. Like writing books, or creating art, as someone said above.

I guess you’re right, but how will a mass market economy continue to work when automation is exponentially increasing the supply of workers, and therefore worsening consumer confidence? We’re left with the robots that don’t buy stuff paradox. Are Republicans or whoever are in charge that blind?

Yes, they Are that blind and unimaginative. The unintended and unforeseen consequences will impact the most affluent (and most insulated) last of all. Only later, when these dots can be too easily connected, will they too begin to worry as well.